New article from Iris Meredith: Dewaffling the tech industry, about the tech industry’s tendency to create fascists and fash sympathisers, and how best to fix the issue

Bluesky’s found another set of rakes to step on - after a user complained of ableism from the mods, Trust and Safety head Aaron Rodericks used the automated systems as an accountability sink, then let slip that users’ work was being uploaded to AI slop service thehive.ai, seemingly contradicting Bluesky’s promise to not dump artists’ work into the slop machine.

On the one hand, it would capture their mindset quite well, on the other hand, I’m not sure how you’d adapt the “sports entertainment” mold of wrestling to Internet arguments

The author’s done a follow-up, focusing on how Graber’s actions have set back AT-Proto adoption: https://azhdarchid.com/jay-graber-confuses-the-gas-and-brake-pedals/

AI believers believe that stringing random words together is equal to consciousness, they absolutely are stupid.

Oh, hey, that’s the “Mikhail Gorbachev Caused Skibidi Toilet” guy

Not only that, she introduced mass surveillance to Bluesky and is brainstorming further methods of such in response to getting clowned on so hard.

Said engineer’s also brainstorming new ways to spy on users and adding a new misfeature that scans everything you post, in direct response to getting clowned on.

But weren’t there a multitude of people clamoring for a Bluesky subscription service from the get-go? Out of recognition that this situation was one of the potential failure modes?

Even beyond that, the Twitter refugees came to Bluesky because they wanted a Nazi-free successor to Twitter. Most of them would’ve happily pitched in to keep the site alive whilst goodwill remained.

Related post, about fashtech being a supply chain issue: https://buttondown.com/dorian/archive/supply-chain-risks-in-late-2025/

You absolutely don’t have to hand it to zuckerberg, but he at least is well aware that he runs an unethical ad company that’s bad for the world, has always expressed his total contempt for his users, and has not posted through it.

Its an extremely low bar to clear, but I’ll begrudgingly hand it to him for being one of the few tech CEOs who didn’t actively limbo under it.

I haven’t fully cut YouTube out of my life (there’s the odd non-dogshit thing on there I’m interested in (e.g. Technology Connections)), but I have cut down on that shit a fair bit.

Its times like there where I’m glad I’m not paying for YouTube. And using an adblocker.

Why don’t the boosters see how wrong the expressions are?

Its because boosters literally cannot tell good art from slop. As far as these soulless, artless husks are concerned, both are mere Units of Content^tm to be mindlessly consumed, and nothing more. The heart and soul put into an excellent story, the years of experience beaming off a masterful painting, the blood, sweat and tears put into an animated magnum opus, all of it is utterly fucking incompehensible to them. They literally lack the basic artistic insight necessary to understand it.

Its basically the same thing with the NFT fad of a few years ago - NFT “art” is just as soulless and hollow as any piece of AI slop spewed out onto the Internet nowadays, but that didn’t register to the capital-brained filth who were attracted to them like flies to shit.

That’s an unfair comparison, Dippin Dots don’t slowly ruin the world by existing (also, they’re delicious)

Is this what happens when techbros try to make art? (its AI slop, of course it is)

The Guardian shat out its latest piece of AI hype, violating Betteridge’s Law of headlines by asking “Parents are letting little kids play with AI. Are they wrong?”

``Think for at least 5 seconds before typing.‘’ - on the subject of pulling the plug on a hostile AI - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45452743

Read that last one against my better judgment, and found a particularly sneerable line:

And in this case we’re talking about a system that’s smarter than you.

Now, I’m not particularly smart, but I am capable of a lot of things AI will never achieve. Like knowing something is true, or working out a problem, or making something which isn’t slop.

Between this rat and Saltman spewing similar shit on Politico, I have seen two people try to claim text extruders are smarter than living, thinking human beings. Saltman I can understand (he is a monorail salesman who lies constantly), but seeing someone who genuinely believes this shit is just baffling. Probably a consequence of chatbots destroying their critical thinking and mental acuity.

I have a longer piece I’ll be posting tonight about this situation which I can link if there’s interest

There’s definitely interest in documenting the techfash takeover on awful, I think you should post it

News has made it to the red site, with the top comment openly ignoring the fash takeover.

Only found a single thread on the orange site about it, with someone trying to bring up Lunduke’s opinion on things (Lunduke’s a banned source on HN, hilariously enough)